Window Shopping(2)

There. Done.

I’m not really seeing the penguins, though. I can’t help but marvel over mine and the man’s reflections standing side by side. He’s easily six foot four, robust, in a ten-thousand-dollar suit. I’m a full foot shorter, dressed in a black puffer jacket and thick, matching tights, second—or third—hand boots of which the sole is rapidly coming loose from the rest of the shoe. My busted fuchsia messenger bag is the only pop of color on my entire person and that’s because it was the cheapest I could find at Goodwill. My thick black hair has been chopped unprofessionally just below my shoulders and cloaks a pale face, its expression reading Do Not Disturb.

We are the most opposite of opposites. Thank God.

Why is he still standing there, smiling into his coffee like he doesn’t have a single care in the world? My rudeness hasn’t even registered. Has my talent for avoidance faded while in the slammer? Losing my superpower would just be the icing on the shit cake of the last few years.

Another full minute passes and he’s still there, standing a couple feet away, facing the window like me. Tilting his head to the right in consideration of the penguins. I could just leave. Continue on my way downtown until I reach the rent-controlled apartment in Chelsea I’m subletting from my uncle while he’s shacked up in Queens with girlfriend du jour. There is nothing keeping me in front of this artistic monstrosity. But my feet won’t seem to move. And why should they? I was here first.

I pop out my left earbud. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, me?” A dimple appears on his cheek. “I was just waiting for your song to be over.”

There is no music playing, but I’m obviously not going to tell him that.

“Why?” I ask, jerkily removing the second bud and shoving both of them back into my jacket pocket. “Do you have another pointless story to tell me?”

“Aw, hell.” His eyes are green. And they twinkle in a way that reminds me of fairy lights. “I’ve got thousands of pointless stories to tell you.”

My smile is saccharine. “One was more than enough.”

“All right,” he draws out, tossing back the remainder of his coffee. “But after the beer-spilling era, Aunt Edna eloped with a rodeo clown named Tonto. Guess you’ll never know about it.”

“Devastating.”

“Sure was. Let’s just say the bull took him by the horns, instead of the other way around.” He gives a full body shiver. “All he left behind for Edna was a half-used face painting kit and some floppy shoes. She patched things up with Uncle Hank about a year later. Now they go yard sale hopping on Sunday mornings.”

I’m pretty sure my jaw is hanging down at my knees. “Is this like a strange kink? Instead of flashing people, you just go around accosting people with bizarre tales?”

“Well it’s too cold to flash people in December. My options are limited.”

He grins at me. Doesn’t temper it at all. He’s all smile lines and warm eyes.

Woefully handsome. Maybe even dapper.

And the most disturbing thing happens. Something I couldn’t have predicted in a hundred million years. The flip flop in my stomach must be a sign of the apocalypse. The end of days is nigh. It has never flipped nor flopped for anything but Kraft macaroni and cheese. I can’t be having a reaction to this man. An attraction reaction.

“I’m going to go now,” I say, my tone a little off.

For the first time since he appeared, that smile is gone. A hint of panic gusts through the green of his eyes just momentarily, before he bows his head. He looks down at the ground for a second, as if trying to regroup, then lifts his head to pin me with a fresh grin. “I did have a purpose for stopping, if you don’t mind humoring me just a while longer.” He dips his chin in the direction of the window. “I’m curious what you make of all this.”

“You’re referring to Penguin Chernobyl?”

His laugh booms down the block, stopping shoppers and looky-loos in their tracks. The sound of it reminds me of hot chocolate in front of a fire in Bruce Wayne’s mansion. It’s rich and hearty and thick with quality. “Yes, I suppose that’s what I’m referring to.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You want to know what I think about it?”

My skepticism gives him pause, one corner of his mouth turning down. “Yes. I do.”

“Do you work at Vivant?”

He shrugs one of those strapping shoulders. “In a manner of speaking.”

I narrow my gaze and give him another once-over. He definitely works in management. Maybe one of the upper offices. His gratingly jovial disposition makes me think he works in PR. Perhaps this entire conversation is his way of testing a new meet the consumers initiative. There is a part of me that really wants to ask, but I refuse to seem interested just because of that cataclysmic flop in my stomach earlier.

“Fine, whatever,” I mutter, wrapping my gloved hands around the cross strap of my messenger bag, stomping my feet for warmth as I turn to face the window again. “I think it’s more likely to drive shoppers away from the store than bring them in. No one wants to think of their Christmas gifts being put together on an assembly line. It’s too impersonal. It’s a reminder that we’re all just trapped in a pattern of consumerism and we’ll never escape it. The pattern will just keep rolling and rolling like that conveyer belt. People want to pick out something for their loved ones that they believe is unique. One of a kind. Not something produced in a factory.”